Love and Loss
by Icecreamlovingtiger
Summary: Lucy and Natsu go on a dangerous job, thinking it would be easy. Unfortunatley, that's far from the truth. My first story, please R&R, thanks! LucyxNatsu one-shot.


"Hey Lucy, lets go on this job!"

"Here let me have a look."

It was a beautiful sunny day in Magnolia. Nothing unusual happening. It was a great day to take a job, especially since she has to pay up the rent soon.

"Hmm seems that you have to beat up a monster terrorising a local village, huh? Woah, 500,000 jewels!? It must be a really terrible monster" Lucy shivered as she pictured what it would look like.

"Don't worry Lucy, I'll protect you," grinned Natsu. "You need money for your rent, right?"

Lucy smiled. Somehow, Natsu's cheerful grin is so infectious, she couldn't help but grin too. "Yep, this will last me seven months."

"Well lets go then!" And before she could even move, he was out the door.

"Mira, me and Natsu are going on a job!" Lucy yelled to the hard-working bartender.

"Alright, well, have fun!" She winked.

Lucy inwardly groaned and rolled her eyes before pursuing after that annoying dragonslayer.

OOOOOOO

"..."

"..."

"...wow Natsu after all this time i still can't believe that, you, who has defeated a lot of powerful guys , would get motion sickness this easily," said Lucy, shaking her head.

"Aye..." Croaked Natsu.

Suddenly, Natsu got up from the seat and leaned over the window of the train, making puking noises. Lucy cringed. When he was finished, he laid his head back onto Lucy's lap. Silence fell between them.

"Are we there yet?" Groaned Natsu.

"Nearly."

"Where's Wendy? I need her." Natsu once again made his way to the window.

"She's not coming with us. Though i wish she had. Besides, the troia spell doesn't work on you anymore, remember?"

"Aye..." Natsu croaked again.

OOOOOOO

The duo reached the entrance of the village, surveying their surroundings.

"...are we there yet?" Asked the still-nauseous Natsu

"Yeah, we're already here" replied Lucy.

Natsu immediately brightened up.

"Oh Thank Mavis! I'm never going on another train again!" And to celebrate, he ran into the nearest building, yelling "FOOD!"

It turned out to be the mayor's home.

.

.

.

.

.

"Ah, i'm sorry" Lucy repeated to the mayor over and over again while bowing.

The mayor just shook his head at the pink-haired idiot who was currently on a mission to empty out his entire fridge.

"Sorry doesn't cut it! I need my food! And who are you people anyway?" exclaimed the mayor.

"Oh that's right! My name's Lucy and this is Natsu. We've accepted a request about a monster..."

"Oh you must the people that will save our village! Come! Let me show you around."

That day, they spent the afternoon going around the village and meeting new people.

"Ah, i nearly forgot! I'll show you guys your room that you will be staying at" exclaimed the mayor.

He lead the way into a small cottage. It was surprisingly clean, despite having no residents living here.

"This place is reserved for guest where if a special guest appeared, we would have at least a place for them to stay at. That's why we keep it clean" he smiled, turning to look at me.

"Does this guy have mind reading powers or something?" She thought, shocked.

"And no, i don't have mind reading powers" the mayor snickered slightly.

Now Lucy seriously felt like she needs to get away. She backed away, mumbling an excuse about having to go explore the rest of this cottage. The kitchen was actually pretty nice. The bedroom had a double bed, a closet and a desk. The bathroom was also pretty decent with it's clean bath and marble tiles. Not a speck of dust to be seen anywhere.

"Well you guys must be tired, i'll leave you to rest. I'll talk about the monster tomorrow. " said the mayor as he walked out of the building.

"Thanks for showing us around!" Lucy called out, then she flopped down on the bed, exhausted.

Natsu stared at the pretty blonde before saying "Do you want to have a shower first?"

"Sure" Lucy smiled at her most favourite dragon slayer before grabbing her clothes and slamming the bathroom door shut. It was only when Natsu heard the shower being turned on before he sighed and holding his head in his hands, began thinking about Lucy. He thought of her silky blonde hair, those chocolate eyes and most of all, her angelic smile. He shook his head. No! He can't fall in love with his best friend! Natsu sighed again. What was he going to do?

Lucy stepped out of the bathroom, feeling refreshed. "Hey Natsu, you want to have a shower?"

"Yeah" replied Natsu and he went to shower.

After a while of looking around the house, Lucy stared at the double bed. It was the only bed available. This means that they have to share a bed. SHARE A BED!. Of course, Lucy didn't mind this. She immediately blushed at this thought. What was she thinking?

Later that night, they decided to go to sleep since it has been a very tiring day.

"I'm taking this side" Lucy announced to Natsu.

"Fine by me. Goodnight"

"Night. And if you try anything funny during the night, i'll definitely kick you out. Got it?"warned Lucy.

Natsu smirked. "Well we've slept in the same bed for a while now, and i haven't done anything to you now, have I? I think it's safe to say that i won't be doing anything tonight."

Lucy blushed. "Hey, you always sleep in my bed without me noticing so it's hardly my fault" she argued.

"Well, i like it that way" Natsu replied, crawling under the covers so Lucy couldn't see his blush. "Night."

"Night" Lucy murmured to the now-asleep dragonslayer. She quietly turned the lights off and crawled into bed.

OOOOOOO

"Wake up"

"..."

"HEY! WAKE UP!" Lucy yelled while shaking him.

Natsu groaned. He had been having a good dream. Something about Lucy...and kissing her. His eyes widened and he lightly blushed as he remembered his dream, not noticing that Lucy was staring at him.

"Hey Natsu, are you alright?" Asked a concerned Lucy.

"Huh? Oh yea i'm fine" he replied a little too fast.

Lucy frowned. "You sure? Your face is red."

"Yeah, i'm fine, why wouldn't i be?"

"Alright...as soon as you feel sick you tell me, okay?" Said Lucy, still not convince.

"Yeah, of course i will" Natsu grinned.

"Hey, i forgot to ask you yesterday, but where's happy?"

"He went on a mission with Wendy and Charle" replied Natsu.

"I see"

They stepped out into the chilly air. It was getting pretty close to winter now. The village actually looked quite beautiful in the morning sun. Natsu turned to look at Lucy. She looked beautiful too...

"Hey, there he is!" Lucy cried.

Natsu switched his attention from the celestial wizard to the mayor standing a few metres away. They walked towards him.

"Hey," called Natsu.

The mayor jumped a few feet into the air. Guess i must have scared him, snickered Natsu.

"Oh i didn't see you there. Morning. I expect that you want infomation on that monster, am i correct?"

Lucy nodded while Natsu stared off into space.

"Come. Let's go somewhere warm."

Lucy couldn't have agreed more. It felt like her toes were going to drop off . She only hoped that Natsu wouldn't see her shivering. He did. His strong arms wrapped around protectively around her, immediately warming her up. She glanced at Natsu in surprise. He was looking the other way, clearly hiding a blush. She giggled softly. She thought it was cute seeing him like that. She quickly dismissed that thought though because she didn't like calling her best friend "cute". The way their way back to the mayor's home and sat around a large table.

"Now this monster has been coming to this village for at least 10 years, i think it was. I'm surprised that we still manage to live here. We've noticed that it comes to our village every full moon. So we are careful to make sure we evacuate during that time. At least 30 of our people disappear every month." At this, Lucy gasped.

"Yes it's very serious. We hope that you will be able to defeat it. Not many of us try to accomplish that and if someone does, either they come back severely injured or...they go missing."the mayor said the last part softly.

Lucy gasped a second time."that's horrible."

"We'll kick it's ass for sure, so no need to worry," Natsu grinned.

The mayor smiled too. "Yes, i hope you will."

"Just out of curiosity, what is the monster's name?" Asked Lucy.

"Ah, the name. Well, you see, the monster is so terrible, we just couldn't a find name suitable for him. So he goes by the name as "he-who-must-not-be-named."

Lucy nodded. "Seems legit."

"The full moon comes up in two days. I suggest that you two prepare yourselves. You may go."

"Thank you." Lucy replied. And with that, Lucy and Natsu returned to the cold autumn breeze. They walked quickly but silently to their cottage.

"...Well i guess we should start practicing," Lucy said, breaking the silence.

Natsu just nodded.

For two full days, they trained. Lucy trained with Capricorn again while Natsu began training in random ways such as withstanding water pressure, trying to swim through quicksand (this is very, very, VERY hard to do, trust me), and he even tried to lift up a house. He succeed, not that Lucy didn't expect him to. He spent ages trying to burn water, since he knew that water was very hard to burn. Obviously, Lucy knew that water couldn't be burnt: it'll just turn into steam, but Natsu thought otherwise. He hoped that he could beat Gray up with this training.

During this time, the people of the village evacuated, which was lucky since at least they didn't have to see their stuff being destroyed by the enthusiastic dragonslayer.

On the third day, they were ready . Then night came and the moon shone bright and clear. A rumbling sound could be heard. Suddenly, the ground rose up quickly. Lucy and Natsu clearly weren't prepared for this as they both fell over. They looked up just in time to see two giant red eyes stare at them. Silence fell. It was like they were having a staring contest. None of them, not even the monster, blinked. The monster lost. It turned it's head from side to side, looking for the usual villagers. Then it focused it's attention back to the two mages. Lucy thought that it slightly resembled a tiger except that it stood on its hind legs, had a huge horn on the tip of it's nose and its skin looked rock solid. It towered at least 10 metres higher than them.

Then, out of nowhere, it's hand shot out, aiming to grab Natsu. Lucy was quite surprised by it's speed because it had a rather bulky body.

"Tsk," muttered Natsu. "Fire dragon's claw!" Natsu deflected the monster's hand pretty easily. But the monster's red eyes brightened angrily and it's nostrils flared.

"Take this! Fire dragon's iron fist!" Natsu leaped up and aimed for the face. The monster just lazily flicked Natsu away into a nearby forest as if he was an annoying fly.

"Hey! You can't do this to meeeeeeee!" Natsu's voice faded into the distance.

"Natsu!" Lucy yelled franticly. He-who-must-not-be-named immediately focused his attention to the blonde. His enormous hand came down upon her.

"Open! Gate of the golden bull, Taurus!"

"Mooo! You have a nice body as always, miss Lucy!" Shouted Taurus as he hit the monster's hand away. Lucy just rolled her eyes. Then, with lightning speed, the monster's other hand grabbed Taurus.

"Taurus!"

"Sorry Miss Lucy!" Taurus disappeared back to the celestial realm.

The monster stared at it's hand in surprise but merely dismissed it. Now it's using it's foot to crush Lucy. Lucy quickly noted that it wasn't using magic. Maybe it doesn't have any.

"Open! Gate of The white lamb, Aries!"

"Wool wall!" Aries conjured a thick blanket of wool just as the foot was about to come into contact with them.

"I'm sorry if it's too fluffy," Aries murmured.

"No, of course not. It's perfect," Lucy smiled.

Seeing that she was no longer needed, Aries went back to the celestial realm. You could tell the wool had an effect on the monster by the look in it's eyes. The monster ceased it's attacks. "Thank goodness," thought Lucy. "This is my chance now."

She found a nearby puddle.

"I'm gonna regret this" muttered Lucy. "Open! Gate of the water-bearer, Aquarius!"

"How dare you summon me from a stupid puddle!" Yelled the furious water-bearer.

"I'm sorry.." Trembled Lucy.

"You better not dare summon me from something like that again." Glared Aquarius.

"Yes...now hurry up and take out that creature!" Lucy pointed to the monster who had a happy, almost dreamy, look in it's eyes.

Aquarius just had a smug look on her face. "I don't need you to tell me," she sneered.

Lucy sighed. "What is her problem?" Lucy wondered as she held tightly to a nearby tree.

Aquarius summoned a huge wave of water as usual, surprising the monster and sending him at least 1000 metres away from their current location. Lucy somehow managed to hang on. Satisfied with her work, Aquarius turned to Lucy.

"Don't summon me for a week now, i have a vacation with my BOYFRIEND. Maybe you should get one too, well not that you'll be able to," she snickered as she went back to the celestial realm.

Lucy just sighed. Sometimes Aquarius can sure be a pain in the ass but she was grateful for her help. She searched the distance for the monster and saw it coming to towards her. She got out Scorpio's key. The monster looks more furious than ever.

Then when it was only 100 metres away, she yelled out "Open! Gate of the scorpion, Scorpio!"

Nothing happened.

"Ah, crap. What a great time to run out of magic. I better do more training when i get back to the guild..." She muttered as she stared at the sharp claws coming straight at her...

"Lucy!" Natsu said as he burst through the trees. "Finally got out of there.." He muttered.

"Natsu?!" Lucy managed to say.

Then, Natsu saw too late, the claws that were coming towards Lucy.

"Nooo!" He roared, lunging towards her. He landed a few feet short of Lucy and looked up just in time to see those deadly claws sinking into her stomach, tearing at it. Lucy screamed and sank onto her knees, clutching her stomach.

"Nooo! Natsu yelled again. He faced the creature.

"Fire dragon's iron fist!" This time, he managed to land an attack on it's face. It roared and swiped at him, scratching his shoulder but he was too angry to care about the blood flowing freely from it.

"Fire dragon secret technique: Crimson lotus, exploding flame blade!" He quickly dealt the finishing blow to the stomach. The monster roared once again and then collapsed, with no signs of movement.

Natsu rushed back to the celestial mage. "Lucy!"

"Natsu...I..I'm sorry" Lucy said weakly.

"No, it's not your fault. It's mine," Natsu cursed himself for not being there for her. He tied his scarf around her stomach, desperate to stop the massive amount of blood flowing out, the scarf turning scarlet within seconds. And for the first time in his life, he was scared.

"T..tell every..one at the g..guild that I will miss..them," Lucy violently coughed up blood.

"I will, just don't talk," Natsu was desperate for Lucy to survive.

"And Natsu...thank you for b..bringing me to F..fairy tail. I...i love you." And even in the current situation, she blushed.

"I love you too! Now please, don't die!" Tears were flowing down his face now.

"I'm glad..." She struggled to smile. Then... Silence.

"L..Lucy?"

Silence.

"Lucy! Wake up!"

Silence.

"Lucy!" The tears ran down his face faster and faster. "Noooooo! Lucy!"

Silence.

He hated the sound of silence ever since.

Time-skip: 1 year later

Natsu walked over to the place, with her favourite flowers in his hands, which were handpicked. He's been coming here ever since the incident. Everyone at the guild was devastated, especially Levy. He could still see her crying her eyes out, her hands going around a body. A silent body. He's been coming to this place everyday. But today was special. He finally arrived at her grave.

"Hey Lucy..."

"Everyone misses you. I miss you. I want you back. My life is not the same without you." A stray tear ran down his face. " i hope you're happy, wherever you are."

He wiped that tear away before continuing. "I...I'm really sorry. I'm sorry i wasn't there for you when you needed me. I'm sorry i didn't protect you like i promised. I'm sorry for everything i did wrong." He couldn't stop himself from crying. It's been like this everyday since then. He hasn't smiled once.

"I want you in my life again. I love you. Happy birthday." He laid the flowers on her grave.

And just like the other days, he would close his eyes and see her standing right before him. So, once again, he closed his eyes and saw her. Her beautiful smile was clear and her eyes sparkled. And he swear he heard her call him when a gust of wind swept by.

"Natsu..."


End file.
